


Let The Storm Inside You Break Over Me

by BigSciencyBrain



Series: Solace [6]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Everyone decided to be really chatty, M/M, Steve does some bonding, Verging on fluffy, When the plot thickens it really thickens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-21
Updated: 2014-01-21
Packaged: 2018-01-09 11:46:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1145591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BigSciencyBrain/pseuds/BigSciencyBrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve finds a way to help SHIELD that doesn't require being Captain America and the Avengers find a use for the information that Loki had collected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let The Storm Inside You Break Over Me

Steve drifts awake slowly, as though tugged and pulled by a gentle tide toward the far off shore.  He becomes conscious of the silence first; he can’t hear the deep thrum of the helicarrier.  For a long time, he lies still and doesn’t move.  He can feel his bed beneath him and, after awhile, hear the soft sounds of New York City that not even Stark technology could completely block out.

He’s not in the cage.

The relief is so sharp that it hurts.  He opens his eyes gradually, focusing on the plain white ceiling above him.  There’s movement at the edge of his vision.

“Hey there.”  Natasha leaves the chair and takes a seat on the bed.  Her hands brush lightly, casually, over his wrist and forehead.  Only Natasha could manage to check his pulse and his temperature as though she was doing anything but that.  She smiles and it’s the soft, sad smile that he’s tried so hard to put down on paper.

His throat is dry.  It takes effort to sit up.  “Did I hurt anyone?”

She hands him a glass of water.  “Just a panic attack.  Bruce sedated you to be safe, that’s all.  You’re fine.”

“Is Thor around?”  There isn’t enough energy in him to be mad at Thor for going behind his back; he’d meant well enough.  For all his ferocity, Thor’s optimism is boundless, especially when it comes to Loki.  Steve gets that.  Bucky had been the closest thing to a brother that Steve had ever had and, if things had been different, he figures he would’ve done some pretty boneheaded things trying to make Bucky happy.

“He and Tony have been down in the lab arguing for the last hour.”

“Then Tony didn’t know Loki was my blind date?”

“None of us knew.”  She puts her hand gently on Steve’s arm.  “We wouldn’t have let you go if we’d known.”

Steve catches her hand in his.  He believes her.  Each of them, in their own way, has proven that they _see_ him as more than just Captain America.  “He hates me.  For what I made him do.”

“No one makes Loki do anything.”

He knows it isn’t that simple.  He’d pushed Loki to the very limits of what he was willing to do and Thor had been right; he’d never considered the cost.  Too blinded by his own pain, he hadn’t thought much about Loki’s. 

“People in pain don’t make good choices,” he tells her, echoing her own words.  He finishes drinking the glass of water and sets it aside.  “I’d better get down to the lab before Thor and Tony blow up the Tower.”  The buttons of his dress shirt have been torn away and his slacks are wrinkled from sleeping in them, but he doesn’t care.

Natasha stays at his side, silent, as he takes the elevator to one of the research floors.  He hears Thor and Tony as soon as the doors open.  Following the noise, he keeps his expression serious and stern.  When he finds them, they’re staring each other down and surrounded by helper robots who seem almost frantic to prevent the oncoming storm. He says nothing, just crosses his arms and glares at both of them.

“Steve!” Tony says a little too cheerfully.  “Glad to see you up and about.  About last night…”

“I am sorry for my brother’s behavior,” Thor interrupts.

Steve says nothing.

“I didn’t know, Thor didn’t tell me.”  Tony rolls his eyes in Thor’s direction.

Thor turns and gives Tony an irritated look.  “I did not know my brother would be willing to come back.”

Tony turns toward Thor, jabbing a sharp tool at him.  “Because you didn’t actually talk to him.  You just ding-dong-ditched and set Steve up on the blind date from Hell.”

“I had hoped Loki would be reasonable,” Thor growls.

“The guy who tried to take over the planet?  Yeah, I can see how that makes all kinds of sense.”

“Enough!” Steve says loudly, not quite shouting.  He fixes them both with a hard glare.  “Thor.  No more secrets.”

Thor nods, serious.  “As you wish.”

“Tony, no more setting me up on dates.”  When Tony begins to protest, Steve narrows his eyes.

“Absolutely.  Whatever you want.”  Tony holds up his hands in surrender.

Steve turns around sharply and leaves the room without another word.  Natasha follows.  He lasts until the elevator doors close before he starts to laugh.

“Did you see their faces?” he manages to get out through his laughter.

Natasha stares at him, brow furrowed, before she shakes his head.  “You’re terrible.”

He laughs harder.  He laughs until his sides ache and his eyes are watering.

She catches his arm as the doors open on the residential floor.  “Tell me you’re really okay.”

He struggles to take a deep breath, but it feels good.  “It was stupid and they shouldn’t have done it, but their hearts were in the right place.  I’m okay.”

She still looks worried.  “You weren’t okay last night.”

“One day at a time, Nat.”  He hesitates, not quite ready to leave the elevator.  Going on unsteady instinct, he puts his hand over hers and then pulls her into his arms, holding tight.  He closes his eyes and buries his face against her hair.  The doors close and the elevator stays still.

“I’ve got you,” she whispers. 

He holds her tighter.  “I know.”

**

Loki wakes to pain in his chest and the taste of dirt in his mouth. 

Resisting the urge to move, he listens.  There are voices; far off and scattered.  He hears more than one language.  Soft sounds of crying.  Someone coughs, the sound is dry and hacking; its source likely untreated for whatever illness they have.  He is underground, a mine of some kind burrowing deep into the earth; he can feel that as certainly as he can smell it.  He smells dirt, metal, rot, and the permeating stench of animals trapped in close quarters for too long. The light is poor; the wires hum.

All that is left of the bouquet of roses is the green ribbon, still clutched tightly in his right hand.  He feels out the edges of the wound on his chest.  Cloth and skin are burned, but not deeply.  Not badly enough to be a bolt from Mjolnir. 

It hadn’t been Thor. 

Loki exhales with something he refuses to think of as _relief_.  He rules out Iron Man on the principle that Stark didn’t know how to keep his mouth shut and would be gloating already.  No doubt the wiring of his prison would be more sophisticated and quieter if Stark was behind his capture.  If this was SHIELD’s doing, then they had thrown him into the earth to be forgotten.  But he doesn’t think they would want to forget him; they would want revenge for what he’d done to their precious Captain America.

No, this is not SHIELD.

SHIELD’s enemies then, but which one?  And why?  He turns through the possibilities, one ear pressed against the ground beneath him, listening.

His unknown captors leave him alone for days.  

At least, he thinks it’s days.  Deep underground, the only measure he has is the miserable excuse for food that they toss into his cage at regular intervals.  Others, the occupants in the cages around him, come and go.  Some of them return broken and bleeding; some of them never return.  When his turn comes, he doesn’t fight the armed men who pull him from his cage. 

They lead him to a room filled with monitors and a strange man who wears cologne that smells of rotting flowers.  They want to know who he is; they want to know _what_ he is.  Is he with SHIELD?  What is his connection to the Avengers?  They change tactics a dozen times, trying to coerce information from him.

He ignores their questions.

“You are the only weakness he has,” the man says as an image of Captain America appears on the monitors. 

They make him an offer.  They put a price on his freedom and his life.

Loki refuses.

The next time they come for him, they shatter the bones in his wings.

They attempt to replace his left eye with one of their false eyes.  With a wave of his hand, he triggers every kill switch in the room and three soldiers are dead before their bodies hit the floor.  They do not try again.

Curled tight inside his broken wings, he shivers against the pain and the cold.  He clutches the green ribbon, rubbing his fingers against the frayed edges.  Mentally, he draws inward, blocking out the pain and everything else.  He will die here; he knows that.  No one is going to come for him.  There will be no rescue for the monster that is _Loki_.

This is what he deserves.

**

Director Fury is waiting in the living room when Steve gets back from his morning run. 

“Sir,” he says.  “Natasha isn’t back yet.”

“Actually, I’m here to talk to you, Rogers.”

Steve wipes at the sweat on his forehead.  “What do you need?”

“Fresh eyes.  Thought you could look over some intel, give me your opinion.”  He holds up a DVD.

The bank of equipment embedded in the wall looks like any other media and entertainment system, but Tony had designed it specifically with the Avengers in mind.  Steve takes the DVD and slides it in.  “JARVIS?”

“Processing, sir,” JARVIS responds immediately.  In another moment, holographic images flash to life around the room.

Steve moves from display to display, taking in the information.  There are pictures, videos, and documents.  He reaches out, making a twisting motion with his hand that JARVIS recognizes as a request to select a specific photograph.  It’s a woman with luminous eyes and dark hair; she’s dressed in a blue and white floral dress.

“Her name is Raina.  Known connections to a group called Centipede.  She was captured by one of our field teams several months ago, but we haven’t been able to get much out of her.”

Steve nods.  He moves to the next photograph; a dead man.  “This guy?”

“Edison Po, former Marine.  Centipede broke him out of prison.  He and Raina worked for the same individual, known as the Clairvoyant.”

“How’d he die?”

“We’re still trying to work that out.  The Clairvoyant seems to stay a step ahead of us, knows where we’ll be before we know.  We’ve managed to take down Centipede sites here and there, but they pop up just as fast.”

“Cut off one head,” Steve says thoughtfully.  He pulls up a photograph of a strange, conical device and reads about the young boys who’d built it.  It had been meant for a buyer, Ian Quinn, who also had ties to the Clairvoyant.  He frowns as he continues to sift through the information, reading and studying the photographs.

“What do you think?” Fury asks when he reaches the last panel.

“SHIELD has been compromised.”  Steve steps back, still focused on the information.  “The Clairvoyant can’t see the future, he just has a big enough picture to predict what you’ll do next.  They’ve got to have access to information, lots of it.  Satellites, computers.  They’re listening to phone calls, reading emails, everything.”

“You think there’s a mole inside SHIELD?”

“More than one.  It’s bigger than SHIELD though. They’re watching the whole world and that takes resources.  A lot of resources.   A network like that doesn’t happen overnight, they’ve been building this up for years.  Decades even.”  He reaches for an image of the Centipede device.  “Chitauri technology, gamma radiation, Extremis, Erskine’s serum.  To get all of those pieces and put them together, someone has to be able to get into all of these organizations.  The people behind this don’t have a side other than their own.  They’ll take anything they want from anyone they can.”

“How do we find them?”

“They’re invisible now because they’re already embedded in the system, like the roots of a tree.  But every tree starts with a seed.”  He releases the image of the device.  “Can you leave this?  I’d like to go over it a few more times.”

Fury nods.  “There’s more where this came from.”

“Bring me everything you’ve got.”

“Glad to have you back, Cap.”

Steve looks away.  “It’s just Steve Rogers, sir.  I’ll help SHIELD and the Avengers however I can, but I can’t go back to being Captain America.”

Fury sighs.  “I’ll send over the rest of what we have on Centipede.”

“Thank you, sir.”  He stands for a long time after Fury leaves, letting his gaze drift over the holographs hanging in the air around him.  “JARVIS, where’s Tony?”

“Still sleeping, sir.  It is seven o’clock in the morning on a Saturday.”

He smiles a little.  “Get him up.  He needs to see this.”

“Very well, sir.  I will do my best to rouse him.”

“Thanks.  I’ll put some coffee on.”  He turns his focus to the files on Akela Amador, carefully reading and rereading the field reports and descriptions of her eye piece.

There’s no point in hurrying; waking Tony before he’s ready to get out of bed is a Herculean effort.  He leaves the displays to shower and get into clean clothes.  The coffee is ready and poured when the elevator dings.  He’s waiting with a coffee mug in hand as Tony steps out, rumpled and scowling.

“This had better be good, Spangles,” Tony mutters as he reaches for the mug.

“See for yourself.”  Steve motions for him to follow.  He stays back, standing beside Tony as he stares blearily at the images.  Once Tony has gone over all of the information, he sips at his coffee and continues to stare.

“JARVIS.  Run a deep dive.  Make it look like housekeeping.”  Tony’s expression is serious when he takes a seat.  “I’ll forgive you for waking me up.  But just this once.”

Steve heads back to the kitchen to get his own coffee.  “They’ve got tech and intel from every government branch, every research lab, every major organization on the planet.  Except for Stark Industries.  Why not try to take Iron Man?  Or the arc reactor.”

“Too obvious.  Like forging the Mona Lisa.”  Tony rubs his chin thoughtfully.

“Maybe they haven’t gotten in.”

Tony frowns, shaking his head a little.  “Maybe not into anything big, but if they’ve gotten into everywhere else, they’ve got to have a toe in the door.  Stark Industries gets hundreds of thousands of attacks a day.  Someone’s always trying to hack in.  Industrial espionage is big business.  And even if Stark Industries doesn’t have anything they want, which I doubt, they’re not going to ignore me.”  He holds out his coffee mug, now empty, and gives Steve an expectant look.

Since he hasn’t taken a drink from his own, he trades Tony for the empty mug and goes for more.  “Can you set a trap for them?”

“Sure.  But these people are shell games within shell games.  All we’d catch is one more shell that leads us to nowhere.”  Tony is frowning thoughtfully, eyes on the displays.  “Why the super charged soldiers?  These guys are juiced and they burn out fast.  Maybe Extremis counteracts the serum, makes it less effective.  Still, not ideal.” 

“Everyone and everything is expendable to them.  I doubt they care about soldiers burning out.”

“They could be selling them off to the highest bidder.  Arms deals aren’t selling rifles out of a truck anymore.  But if it’s just money, those guys come with a hefty upkeep for their price tag.  It’d be cheaper to buy guided missiles and point them at the people you don’t like.  And if they can crawl into any government or company they want, why have soldiers at all?  Assassins, I get.  If I could snap my fingers and have a dozen Natasha Romanovs, I could take over the world.  But these guys are no Black Widow.”

Steve considers that.  “The Clairvoyant relies on information, but maybe it’s not just one person.  Maybe it’s an organization, different parts of it moving different people around, like chess pieces on a board, only they’ve got more than one player.”

“Chess pieces,” Tony repeats softly.  “I’m beginning to really dislike these Centipede guys.”

“So am I.”

After a moment, Tony’s expression turns calculating.  “Remember back in the good old days when Loki was just a crazy winged stalker?  Before he was your crazy winged ex.” 

“Yes,” Steve says hesitantly.

“J, pull up the Shadowfax files.”  He sets his mug aside as new images begin to fill the room.  “I digitized everything he collected.  Or, rather, a small army of Stark interns did it.  The guy might be crazy, but he was thorough.  Centipede will notice if we go sniffing around, but I’m willing to bet they never realized he was watching them.”

Steve stands up, looking around at the deluge of information filling the space around them.  “You think he might have collected something on Centipede?”

“He collected something on everyone.  There were a dozen boxes on you alone.  He was a little bit obsessed.  That’s how you knew it was Loki, wasn’t it?” Tony asks casually.  “Nothing about him.”

“I guessed,” Steve admits.

“You’re smarter than you look, Cap.  You just have godawful taste in men.”  Squinting up at the images, Tony turns around in a slow circle.  “Loki stayed off the grid, so there’s no electronic trail, not like the rest of us.  No email, no social networks, no bank accounts.  If you’re right about how this guy gets his info, Loki would’ve been completely invisible.  SHIELD had Loki as presumed dead and Shadowfax as an unaffiliated mutant.  If there’s anyone the Clairvoyant has underestimated, it’s Loki.”

**

Loki opens his eyes slowly.  There is sunlight above and soft fingers combing through his hair.

“Loki,” says a familiar voice.  A woman’s voice.  “Loki, wake up.”

Blinking into the light, he tries to bring the face above him into focus.  “Mother?”

Frigga smiles down at him.  “Who did you expect?”

“But you’re…you’re.”  His throat constricts and stops the words.  Rolling onto his side, he buries his face against her lap and wraps his arms tight around her.

“There now,” she whispers, stroking his hair.  “My poor, lost boy.”

He cries until there are no tears left in him and her gown is damp.  He sits up and wipes his eyes, unwilling to let go of her for fear that she will vanish before his eyes.  “Where am I?  How are you here?  This can’t be Valhalla.”

She shakes her head.  “You have not gone anywhere, my son.  I came to you.”

For the first time, he looks around.  They are in a clearing with graceful willows, soft green grass beneath them, and a gurgling stream winding through wildflowers.  There is a statue of a man holding a circular shield, frozen in motion.  Thick vines have begun to climb up the stone legs and wrap around the statue.  Beyond that, he sees forest all around them.  The trees are thick and dark; he feels afraid to venture closer.  Outside the clearing, in the dark forest, he hears far off howling of dark creatures and he knows the woods are filled with pain and death.

Above him, he hears laughter.  When he looks up, he sees himself and Thor as children, barely old enough to be climbing a great ash tree in the center of the clearing.  Thor is insisting that they climb ever higher as the young Loki scrambles lithely through the branches.

Frigga takes his hand and squeezes gently. “You two were impossible to keep up with.” 

He has no memory of how he came to there or where he was before.  He wants to ask, but he is afraid to know the truth.

“Who is this man?”  Frigga motions to the statue.

Loki tries to pull the name from his memory, but it slips away.  “I do not remember his name.”

“He must be very dear to you.”

“I think he was.”  Loki pulls closer to Frigga, wanting nothing more than to curl up on her lap and stay there.

“Rest, my son.  I will keep you safe.”  Her arms wrap around his shoulders.  Thick curls as soft as silk fall down over his skin.  He breathes in the smell of her and closes his eyes.

He is so very tired.

**

The maps take up nearly the entire surface of the wide table.  Steve spreads them all out and pins down their edges, following lines and dots as he marks out known locations of possible Centipede cells.  Behind him, the buzzer at the door sounds before Natasha lets herself in.

She gives him a nod.  “Hey.” 

“How was Dubai?” he asks as he turns back to the maps.

“Walk in the park.”  She moves to his side and takes a seat.  “You?”

“Slow and steady wins the race,” he answers absently.

They couldn’t be too careful and they had to be patient.  That was the part that frustrated Steve the most, the waiting.  But they couldn’t unravel what had taken years to build, quietly and in the shadows, in a matter of weeks.  SHIELD had maintained their outward offensive on Centipede, while the Avengers had taken their own tactic.  The room around them – Tony had nicknamed it the Inner Sanctum – was listed as a utility space on the blueprints for Stark Tower and was almost entirely cut off from the outside world.

“Where are the others?” Natasha asks.  Her gaze is focused on one of the maps, a slight frown on her lips.

The door buzzes as if to answer her question.  Clint is carrying a stack of pizza boxes and suddenly the entire room smells like cheese and pepperoni.  They all take seats around the table, passing the pizza boxes around.  Steve snags a couple slices before handing the box to Thor.

“Bring the others up to speed, Cap,” Tony says through a mouthful of pizza.

“With the information Loki collected, we managed to identify three members of Centipede that SHIELD hadn’t.  Fury is the only one who knows.  As far as Centipede knows, SHIELD still isn’t aware of these three.”  He moves a stack of dossiers to the table.  “Try not to get pizza grease all over them.  We only have hard copies.”

“Couldn’t risk tipping them off electronically,” Tony pipes up.  “We think we’ve found the guy who manages the backscatter eyeballs.  Used to be affiliated with AIM, but he dropped off the map a couple years ago.”

“And two more like Ian Quinn.  Backers, buyers.”  Steve finally sits down, leaning back in his chair.

“Do we take them out?” Natasha asked.

“No, not yet anyway.  But if we can get our hands on the guy behind the eyeballs, we might be able to prevent any more people from becoming victims.  At least for awhile.”  Reaching out, Steve taps a finger against a spot on one of the maps.  “Akela Amador was held in a copper mine in Shanxi Province.  That’s where she got hers.  We started there, looking for a connection between this guy and other possible locations where he might be based.  It’s a sensitive enough process to implant one of the eyes, we didn’t think it would be mobile and probably not more than a handful of places they could do it.  We identified one location as the most likely.  A boron mine in Turkey.  It was depleted and sold to Quinn Worldwide a decade ago.  For a depleted mine, satellite images show a lot of security and supply trucks coming in and out regularly.  A SHIELD agent was able to infiltrate the facility, posing as a guard, about six months ago.”

Natasha leans forward, tilting her head to get a better look.  “What’s the plan?”

“SHIELD’s agent on the inside was able to get us photographs of what’s inside.  I was just about to upload them.”  Steve motions to a memory stick that Fury had brought over.  “It’s a place to start.  Even if this isn’t where they’re implanting the eyes, we’ll have another piece of the puzzle.”

“I got this.”  Tony finishes his pizza slice and reaches for the memory stick, heading for the control panel on the wall.

“Nothing would please me more than to put an end to this Centipede,” Thor says.  He pulls a piece of pepperoni off of his next slice of pizza and drops it into his mouth.  “They are cowards.  Hiding in the shadows, taking advantage of innocents.”

For a moment, Steve simply watches the others and is amazed at what he has.  Watching his team – his family – is the happiest he’s been in a long time.  Without the shield, without the uniform, he’s still one of them and he’s still fighting the good fight and that’s enough.

“Here we go,” Tony announces with a flourish. 

The monitors along the walls spring to life and fill with images.  Many of them are fuzzy, unfocused; they speak to the photographer’s hurry to catch what they can without being caught.  They spend most of the night pouring over the photographs, picking them apart and searching for the smallest bit of information that might give them a course of action.  They see interrogation rooms and a tightly guarded surgical area where the agent was only able to get fractured pictures.  One of them is a rack of false eyes stored carefully in metal tubes.  There are cages with people inside.  It makes Steve sick to his stomach.

A flash of black, a familiar outline, catches his eye.

“JARVIS, go back,” he says sharply.  The photograph in front of him blurs and reverts to the previous image.  “Enlarge the bottom right corner.”

His stomach clenches.  The image is blurry, but he can make out the shape of black wings and pale legs.  It can’t be possible.  He repeats it over and over even as his heartbeat begins to race.

“Steve?” Natasha asks.

He doesn’t turn around.  He can’t look away.  “Thor.  Is there any reason Heimdall wouldn’t be able to see Loki?”

“If he did not wish to be seen.  He has always been skilled at hiding himself.”

Breath catches in his throat and, for a second, he thinks he’s going to have another panic attack.  “Do you know where he is right now?”

Thor is quiet for several moments.  “No.  Heimdall has not been able to find him for some time.  He never returned to the mountain where he was hiding.”

Steve turns around then, reaching for the back of his chair and holding onto it as though it’s the only thing between him and utter panic.  None of them are looking at him, they’re looking at the image behind him.

“No more waiting,” Steve says through gritted teeth.  Anger is boiling inside him, writhing and burning.  He hasn’t been this angry since after he’d watched Bucky fall from the train.  “The outer defenses are easy.  But as soon as they know they’re under attack, they could trigger every kill switch and murder every innocent person there.  Tony, I need you to find a way around that.  The signal is wireless, find a way to stop it.”

“On it,” Tony says immediately.

“Thor, once you’re inside, break open every cage you find.  Natasha and Clint, focus on getting people out and to safety.”  He closes his eyes and tries to take deep breaths.  “Bruce, you can take your pick.”

“I think the Other Guy might bring down the mine on top of everyone just by size alone.  I’ll stay topside.”

“Steve,” Natasha begins.  “You don’t know for sure that it’s him.”

“I know those wings; I know every inch of him.  And I know he wouldn’t be lying on the ground covered in dirt if they hadn’t,” he stops, choking on the words.  “Go.  I’ll call ahead and let Fury know you’re coming.  I’ll explain the situation.”

“What is the situation, exactly?”

Steve looks up and meets her gaze.  “Centipede has gone too far.”  He sees the doubt in their faces but they get up and leave the room anyway, making their way to where they need to go.  Once they’re gone, he sits down and buries his face in his hands.

Centipede has Loki.

Too many questions buzz around his mind.  He’d assumed that Loki was simply hiding, that he didn’t want anything to do with Steve.  His hands shake with fear and rage.  The thought of sitting in Stark Tower, waiting for the others to return and tell him if it was true, makes his stomach clench.  He tries to focus, tries to push all of his emotions away.

He calls Fury.  “Sir, Centipede has Loki.  We know where they're holding him.  The others are on their way.”

“You should be with them, Captain Rogers.”

He swallows hard.  He can’t; he’s not ready.  More than anything, he’s terrified of what will happen if he puts the suit on again.  What if he can’t handle it?  What if he falls apart?  He looks up at the image on the monitor.

What if it’s his fault?

**

Excitement is palpable on the deck of the helicarrier.

Tony boards the Quinjet with the others, their expressions grim.  Clint is already in the pilot’s seat, running through pre-flight checks.  There are two more jets full of SHIELD agents and a modified C-130 with medical capabilities will join them in the air.

“Who’s that?” Tony nods toward a striking woman who appears to be in charge of the SHIELD agents boarding the Quinjets.

“Agent Hand,” Natasha shouts over the noise.  “She’s been running SHIELD’s offensive against Centipede.”

“She doesn’t look friendly.”

“You’ll hate her.  She loves rules.”

Tony pulls a face.  He sets JARVIS to performing scans on the suit that he doesn’t need.  It gives him something to do.

When Agent Hand approaches the Quinjet, she looks sharp enough to cut them to ribbons.  “The enemy we’re up against will probably know you’re coming.  You need to be prepared-”

Tony grins as he interrupts her.  “Oh, I don’t think he’s going to see this coming.”  He nods toward the deck of the helicarrier.  Steve is walking toward them in his Captain America uniform, his shield on his back and his jaw set in a hard line.

He walks up the ramp into the Quinjet.  “I’ll take it from here, Agent Hand.  Tony, can you disable the kill switches?”

“It’s not pretty, but it’ll work.”  Tony holds up a small, spherical device.  “It’ll wreak havoc with every wireless signal within fifty miles.  Including ours.”

“Then we’ll have to trust each other.  Tony, hold the perimeter.  Centipede doesn’t get out.  If they try to bring in more security, take them down.  I’ll clear a path to the front door.”  Steve takes the device and tucks it into a pouch on his belt.  “Let’s send the Clairvoyant a message.”

“Don’t touch your boyfriend?” Tony quips.

Steve glares at him, but the corner of his mouth turns up into a barely there smile.  “Captain America says hello.”

**

It takes hours to dismantle the security and secure all of the guards and the man responsible for the false eyes.  Hours of static buzzing in Steve’s ear because all wireless signals have been jammed.  He pushes everything aside and he gets the job done.

When there’s no one left to fight, he follows the trail of battle into the depths of the mine.  SHIELD agents shepherd victims through the passages, many of them holding their hands over one of their eyes as though that could save them.  He sees evidence of Thor and of Mjolnir along the walls of the tunnels and in the scorched, melted metal of the cages.

He finds Thor kneeling beside Loki. Until that moment, he’d hoped it wasn’t real, but the stricken look on Thor’s face tells him everything he needs to know.

“We need a stretcher,” he tells one of the SHIELD agents.

Loki is unconscious and barely recognizable.  His hair has been shaved away in jagged, uneven patches.  He is too thin, almost skeletal, and the bones of his wings jut out at odd angles; they’ve been broken.  Steve has to turn away.  He wants to find the Clairvoyant and break every bone in his body.  Instead, he takes deep breaths and tells himself that taking the facility is a significant blow to Centipede. 

He stays still, fists clenched at his sides, as SHIELD agents carefully transfer Loki to a stretcher and carry him out of the mine.

“Why didn’t he escape?  Or fight?” Thor asks, worry and anger plain on his face.  “With a dagger in his hands, he has no equal in all of Asgard.  And if not even Asgard can hold him, how could this Centipede manage to do it?”

Steve has the same questions.  “I don’t know.” 

It is well into the next day when every innocent victim is evacuated, the kill switches disabled and false eyes removed.  SHIELD agents dismantle every piece of technology they can, collecting hard drives, disks, and photographing every inch of the interior spaces for analyst review.  Steve moves among them, carrying and lifting what others can’t, or simply thanking them for working through the night to do what needs to be done.  Eventually, all but one of the jets has taken off and headed home.  His last act is to carry a box of explosives deep into the mine.  He sets charges at every major intersection, every single support point.  On the way out, he sets charges in every surface structure as well.  He switches off Tony’s device only when he is certain that everyone is safe and climbs into the last Quinjet. 

When they’re out of the blast radius, he sends the signal to set off the explosives and the mine facility erupts into a towering inferno.  He looks up and sees Natasha watching him. 

They return to the helicarrier first.  

Agent Hand leads the debrief sessions, grilling them for details about what was found at the facility and how the events unfolded.  It’s clear that she disapproves of the complete destruction of the mine and isn’t convinced that Steve is well enough to lead.  She demands to know what intelligence led them to the mine and where the Avengers got it.  Steve addresses her questions calmly, but gives her nothing that could compromise the months of investigation they’ve already done and the intelligence that Loki had gathered.  After several hours, she dismisses all but Steve to begin filing their post-mission reports. 

She sets her glasses down on the table.  “Mister Stark called him your boyfriend.”  She holds up a photograph.  “Maybe I’m confused, isn’t this the same Loki who nearly destroyed New York City a few years ago?  He’s changed his appearance since then and has gone by an assumed name.”

“One and the same, ma’am.”

“And is Loki your boyfriend, Captain Rogers?”

He doesn’t flinch under the hard look she’s giving him.  “We were lovers at one time, yes.”

The tips of her fingers drum lightly against the table.  “Director Fury believes you’re ready to return to the job.  You’re sitting in front of me as Captain America.  I want to know that SHIELD didn’t just expend a considerable amount of resources to go into a sovereign nation and blow up a sizable portion of that nation, because you wanted your boyfriend back.”

He takes a deep breath, steadying himself.  “The primary target was the man responsible for the false eyes used by Centipede to control their operatives.  He was captured, the people held captive were rescued and treated, and the facility was destroyed.”

“And you can tell me that it had nothing to do with Loki.”  She shakes her head.  “You can’t, can you?  Not without lying to me.”

“If they had succeeded in implanting one of those devices in Loki and using it to control him, we would’ve had more than a fight on our hands.”

“Then why wasn’t he brought back to SHIELD?”

“So you could stick him in another cage?” Steve snaps.  He regrets his tone immediately and tries to rein in his temper.  “Stark Tower is far better suited to handle him.”

“That wasn’t your call, Captain Rogers.”

“If you’ve never met Thor, believe me, he can be very persuasive.  Loki is his brother.”  He can tell that she doesn’t like his answer but can’t demand that the Avengers hand over Loki either.  “Why don’t you say what you really want to say, Agent Hand?”

“How do I know this isn’t clouding your judgment?  How do I know your relationship with Loki is over?  You kept it hidden for months.  He is a known enemy of SHIELD and he was either directly or indirectly responsible for your breakdown.”  She gathers up all of her notes and files, pressing them into a neat stack.  “I think you’re unfit for duty, Captain Rogers.  Lucky for you, Director Fury disagrees.”

He sets his forearms on the table, weaving his fingers together.  “You’re not the only one around here who wonders about me, about whether or not I’m fit for the job.  Whether or not I’m going to fall apart.  You’re afraid someone will get hurt because I made a bad call.”  He reaches across the table and catches the corner of Loki’s picture.  It’s an old picture; one of the surveillance shots of Loki in Germany when he’d come to conquer the earth.  “I would have the same concerns if I were in your shoes.  I’m still human and I make mistakes like anyone else.  I’m not a perfect soldier and I never will be.”

Elegantly shaped brows furrow for a moment, her eyes narrowing.  “I will have to note in my official report that your relationship with Loki was a factor in this mission.”

“Then you’ll have to make that note in every report for every mission that I lead from now on.”  He stands up slowly, not looking away from her.  “What happened between me and Loki changed me; I’m not ashamed of that.  I’m not the man I was before I met him.  But I think I’m a better man now.  If that’s all, I need to get back to Stark Tower.”

She nods dismissively and reaches for her glasses.  “For now.”

Clint and Natasha barely keep up with him when they’re finally free to go.  He’d rather run than take a taxi, but he knows it won’t make a difference.  There’s nothing he can do for Loki; he has to trust his team and trust Tony.  The cab barely comes to a stop before he’s bolting out the door, unable to wait any longer.  He has to hope that Loki is still alive, that he will be alright.

That he wasn’t too late.

“Captain Rogers,” JARVIS says as he enters the building.  “Mister Stark is expecting you on the medical research floor.”   The medical research floor is Bruce’s domain. 

“Thanks, JARVIS.”  Steve holds the elevator until Clint and Natasha catch up with him.  None of them speak.

Bruce looks up from the tablet in his hands when the elevator doors open again.  “We just lowered him into the tank.  I had to re-break most of the bones in his wings to set them.  But they should heal properly now.”

Steve starts moving again only after Natasha puts her hand on his arm.  They follow Bruce down the hallway.  Steve barely understands the words he’s saying.  His mind is racing and spinning and everything around him is lost in the frantic beating of his heart.  When they stop, it takes Steve several seconds to realize what he’s seeing.

An enormous tank filled with clear liquid takes up most of the room.  Inside, he sees Loki floating, weightless.  There’s an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth; tubes and wires jut out from his chest, his arms, and his legs.  His eyes are closed.  His wings have been splinted and bound; the feathers stir with the currents in the liquid.  To Steve, he looks dead.  There is none of the life and vitality that he knows comes with who Loki is.  Bruises and scars are scattered over his pale skin; the shaved head and hollowed cheeks give him a macabre look.

He’s moving before he can think, stripping away the cowl of his uniform and his gloves.  He presses his palms and forehead against the glass, trying not to see this as a dark mirror of his own time inside Hulk’s cell.

“It’s a nutrient solution,” Bruce says behind him.  “We’ve got him stabilized for now.”

Steve sags against the tank, unable to put his relief into words.

“What did they do to him?” Thor asks, his voice dark as a thundercloud.  The lab chair he’s sitting on is dwarfed by his size and looks ready to collapse.

Tony is the one to answer.  He’s moving around the room, checking readings on various monitors and frowning.  “Nothing good.  Signs of malnutrition, starvation, the usual.  His wings were shattered.  More than once.  Probably to keep him from flying or using them as weapons.  Broken fingers, broken ribs, broken legs.”

Steve has to turn his face away from the tank, grimacing.  Was this his fault?  Had his decision to get involved with Loki made him a target for Centipede?  Why hadn’t Heimdall seen him and told Thor what was happening?  Even as he asks the question, he knows the answer and his stomach sinks; Loki hadn’t wanted to be found.

“He’ll live,” Tony hesitates.  “But I’m not detecting any brain activity.”

“What does that mean?” Thor demands.  He moves to Steve’s side, peering into the tank.

“It means he’s in a vegetative state.  Effectively, his body is still functioning but his mind is gone,” Bruce explains gently.  “He might recover.  He might not.  All we can do is wait and see.”

Steve thinks about the possibility that Loki will stay this way, frozen and still, forever.  He was too late.

Tony’s hand settles on his shoulder.  “He was holding this.”

He watches as Tony drops a worn, stained, and frayed piece of fabric into his hand.  It’s the green ribbon that had bound the white roses he’d given Loki that night at the restaurant.  He closes his fingers over the ribbon.  “Is he in pain?”

“I don’t think so, no.  We’re monitoring all his vital signs.  If we pick up anything that indicates he’s in pain, I have a few ideas of what to try,” Bruce answers.

Steve motions to the tank and lab space around it.  “When did you set this up?” 

Tony grins and looks around the lab proudly.  “Been working on it for awhile.  For those of us who aren’t super soldiers, Norse Gods, or have an indestructible green giant as an alter ego, I thought we might want to step up our game as far as recovery goes.  Not that you aren’t a lovely nurse, Cap.  I haven’t had time to test it out, at least not completely, so Bruce and I are kinda winging it.”

“Can he hear us?” Thor asks.  He places one hand against the glass.

“It’s possible.”  But the expression on Bruce’s face isn’t hopeful.  “It can’t hurt to talk to him.”

“Why don’t you come with me, Thor?” Steve motions to the door.  “I feel like hitting something.”

Thor nods.  “If there is nothing else I can do to help him.”

“We’ve got it covered.”  Tony gives them a wave.  “Try not to cause any major damage.  And remember rule number five, no throwing Mjolnir inside the Tower.”

After Steve changes out of his Captain America uniform, he meets Thor on the training floor.  He hangs two punching bags several feet apart on the steel beam Tony had installed before sitting down to wrap his hands.  He offers the tape to Thor even though he doesn’t need it. 

He hasn’t slept in more than twenty-four hours and he doesn’t think Thor has either, but he knows that if he tries to sleep now, all he’ll find are nightmares.

The first bag is a warm up.  He tries to work the tension out of his back and shoulders, focusing on his hands and the solid thunk of his fists hitting the bag. Thor is the first to destroy his.  Sweeper robots zoom out from the corners to vacuum up the sand and collect the ruined pieces of the bag.  He hangs another one and resumes punching, his great fists shaking the bag with each blow.  When Steve is on his second bag and Thor on his third, Thor finally speaks.

“Why would he not allow Heimdall to see him?” Thor rests his forehead against the bag, holding it in place.  “I do not understand.”

Steve thinks he understands, but doesn’t want to say it aloud.  Instead, he sits down and peels away the tape on his hands.  It’s worn already and needs to be replaced.  “Maybe it’s because he was underground.”

“Or Heimdall did not tell me.  Either by his own choice or the Allfather’s command.”  There’s anger in Thor’s voice that has nothing to do with Earth.

“Would your father really execute Loki if he ever went back to Asgard?”

“I have no doubt of it.”  Thor turns away from the bag and sinks to the floor, resting his elbows on his knees.  “After mother’s death, my father has been lost in grief for her.  I have known him to be ruthless, even cruel at times, but this is something more.  Without my mother, he is not himself.”  He smiles a little at some thought or memory.  “Loki was ever our mother’s favorite.  She understood him as I never will.”

“Maybe your father looks at Loki and it reminds him of her.”  

“Perhaps.” He frowns for a moment before shaking his head and dismissing whatever was troubling him.  “I had hoped he could make a home here, in your world.  I thought I could help him.”

Steve stares down at his hands.  “Maybe if I hadn’t, maybe if I hadn’t run away from him that night.”  He doesn’t finish that thought; he doesn’t need to.

“You are not to blame, Steven.  I confronted him the next day and tried to convince him to stay.  But if those were our last words, at least mine were not said in anger.”   

They sit in silence for several minutes before Steve speaks again.  “SHIELD thinks my judgment is compromised.  That Loki is the reason we went after the mine facility.  Because I wanted to get him out of there.”  He picks at the tape.  “They’re not wrong.”

“You would’ve done the same for any of us.  And if it had been you there, we would’ve come.”

“But Loki isn’t one of us.”  He tries to think his way through his words carefully.  “To SHIELD, he’s still an enemy.”

“Do not trouble yourself with their concerns.  We struck a great blow to this Centipede.”

Steve reaches for the tape and begins winding fresh strips around his hands.  “I can’t imagine how hard it is for you to see him like this.”

“I have seen far worse.  I have watched him fall into nothingness and held him in my arms as he died.”  Thor moves to get up, eying the bag once again.  “Loki has cheated Death more than once.  You will see.  I have faith in my brother.  He always finds a way.”

Steve hopes Thor is right.

He stops after the fourth bag and Thor is still pulverizing his fifth.  The lack of sleep is beginning to catch up to him and the thought of a long, hot shower is more enticing by the moment.

In the shower, he stands under the spray for a long time, letting the heat loosen the muscles in his neck and shoulders.  It does little to soothe the jumbled thoughts inside his head or his twisting, tangled emotions.  He wonders if Loki still hates him; if he _blames_ Steve for his capture and treatment at Centipede’s hands. Eventually, he decides that it doesn’t matter.  He hadn’t gone after Loki because he wanted his lover back; he’d gone after Loki because Thor deserves to have his brother back.  That is far more important.  Maybe this time, Loki will give Thor a chance to make things right between them.

He holds to that hope as he turns off the water and climbs out.  His limbs are stiff; he wants nothing more than climb into bed with a sketchbook and draw until he falls asleep.

“Captain Rogers,” JARVIS interrupts his thoughts.  “Agent Romanov requested that I inform you dinner has arrived.”

His stomach growls as though on cue.  He hasn’t even thought about dinner.  Tugging on jeans and a t-shirt, he can already smell the food by the time he reaches the door.  He hears laughter.  The rest of the Avengers are sitting on the floor in the center of the living room, passing around containers of Chinese takeout.  Thor has changed into street clothes, his hair pulled back into a damp ponytail.

“Who’s bogarting the egg rolls?” Clint asks, snapping his chopsticks at Natasha.

Bruce gives him a look. “Bogarting?”

“It’s a word.”

“I’m just surprised to hear it coming out of your mouth.”

Settling down between Tony and Thor, Steve grabs one of the paper plates and looks over the selection of dishes.  “This all looks amazing.”

“Make sure you get some of the orange chicken before it’s gone.”  Natasha hands over a large container.

“Hold up.”  Tony sets down his plate.  “I know what we need.”  He heads into the kitchen and returns with a bottle of whiskey and a stack of shot glasses. 

“That’s what I’m talking about.  Give.”  Clint reaches for the shot glasses.

Steve scoops up a couple egg rolls, filling up the last of the empty space on his plate.  Natasha doesn’t take no for an answer and presses a shot glass into his hand.  She pours until it’s almost sloshing over the top and just winks at him when he protests.

“One of these days,” she says as she holds the bottle out to fill Thor’s shot glass.  “I’ll bring back some real vodka for you guys.  The good stuff.”

The shot glass looks like a thimble in Thor’s giant hand, but he grins before swallowing it down and holding it out for Natasha to refill.  “This is good.  Although it cannot compare to Asgardian mead.”

Clint groans.  “Yeah, yeah.  We’ve heard all about your mead.  What I want to know is why no one around here but me seems to appreciate a good beer.”

“Too many bad beer memories,” Tony says through a mouthful of Lo Mein.

The whiskey burns as Steve swallows and he pulls a face as he sets the glass down, turning to his food.  It’s been a long time since they’ve ordered takeout after a mission and sat together, eating and laughing.  Once he’d starting seeing Loki at night, he hadn’t stuck around for dinner.  The bite of chicken in his mouth suddenly seems harder to chew.

“What about you, Steve?” Bruce asks.  “Beer or liquor?”

Steve swallows hurriedly.  “Doesn’t really matter to me.”

“Still, you have a have a preference.”

He tries to think about it.  “Wine, I guess.  I used to drink with Loki.  He loves wine, reds mostly.”  He can still picture Loki clearly, a glass of wine in one hand and a book in the other.  “And you guys wouldn’t believe how well he can cook.  I mean, it’s amazing.  Easily the best steak I’ve ever had in my life.”  Looking up, he realizes that they’re all watching him with a wary curiosity.  “Sorry.  I probably shouldn’t talk about him.”

“The talking about him isn’t weird.”  Tony refills his shot glass and tips it up, swallowing down the whiskey in one gulp.  “It’s that you don’t realize how you sound when you talk about him.  Am I right, guys?  Back me up here.”

“Oh yeah,” Clint snorts.  “He gets all moony.”

Tony waves his shot glass in Steve’s direction.  “You, my super soldier friend, are still in love with him.” 

Steve groans.  “Tony.  Please.”  He makes a show of turning his attention back to his food.

“And now he’s here, under the same roof.”  Tony sniffs with affected sadness.  “It’s almost romantic. It would be more romantic if he wasn’t in a coma.  But hey, it’s just like that movie…the one with that guy with the eyebrows who falls onto the train tracks.  Sandra Bullock is in it.”

“Tony.”

“Maybe the power of your love will heal him.”  Tony grins and waggles his eyebrows.  Clint is making gagging sounds.

Steve sighs.  “He doesn’t love me.  He never did.”  He keeps his head down, focusing on eating.  He knows this is Tony’s way of trying to lighten the mood and make it less of a five hundred pound gorilla.

“Why don’t we change the subject,” Natasha suggests quietly.

“But if you want to keep talking about Loki, I can give you some pretty graphic descriptions of-" Steve is cut off by everyone else in the room protesting loudly that they definitely do not want him to keep talking about Loki.  He stifles a grin and shrugs.

“I have a story about Loki,” Thor says.  He leans back on his hands.

Tony reaches for the bottle of whiskey. “Please tell me it’s not a sex story.”

Thor laughs, the sound of it echoing through the room.  “When we were just boys, there was an ancient ash tree in my mother’s garden.  We were like squirrels, chasing each other through the branches for hours.  Inevitably, one of us would fall out and end up with bruises or a skinned knee.  Mother would simply laugh.  But the tree grew old and, one day, men came to chop it down.  Loki was inconsolable.  He climbed into the highest branches and refused to come down again until they promised to spare the tree.”

“Of course, father eventually came out and commanded him to come down.  And then the tree was gone.  But mother had the wood from the tree fashioned into a sail boat large enough to fit us both.  Loki named it Yggdrasill, after the World Tree.  We must’ve spent ages in that boat, exploring the waters and searching for adventures.  Looking back at it now, it’s a wonder that our mother did not lose her mind with worry over what might happen to us.”

Thor’s expression turns wistful.  “All you know of my brother is his hate and his vengeance.  Except, perhaps, for Captain Rogers.”

Tony raises his shot glass, glancing around the group.  “To family.  The only people you still love, even when they’re trying to kill you.”

**

The dark forest howls.

Loki wants to look away but the darkness draws him in even as he dreads the twisted voices that he hears beyond the clearing.  He catches glimpses of great serpents and monstrous wolves darting through the trees.  The woods are full of monsters.

“Loki,” Frigga says.  Her hands are soft against his skin.  “It is time.”

“Why can’t I stay here?” he asks, unable to pull his eyes away from the writhing darkness beyond.

“You know why.”

He pulls closer to her.  He has seen, of course, that the darkness is coming ever closer to them.  It has even begun to devour the statue of the man with the shield, wrapping black tentacles over stone until it seems the man is straining to be free of them.  The red, white, and blue of the shield still gleams, but not as brightly as it had before.

“Loki.”

He forces himself to turn and look at her, desperate to believe that she is real.  “Tell me.  What is this place?”

Frigga places her hands against his cheeks.  “I have protected what I could of your mind.”

“My mind?” Loki asks, bewildered.

“You are safe now, my son.”  She presses her lips against his forehead.  “But I fear the most dangerous part of your path still lies ahead.”

He catches her hands in his and presses against them.  “I do not wish to leave you.”

“You must.”  She meets his gaze, her eyes bright.  “What you see.  The woods around us.  That is your mind, your soul.  The pieces of yourself that you have lost, the darkness you have become.  Only you can find a way through it.”

“I can’t.”

“I know that you can.”

“Please,” he pleads.  “Let me stay.”

“I will always be with you.”  She kisses his forehead, his nose, his cheeks.  “A mother’s love never dies, Loki.  Not even in death.  Remember, you are my son.  You are a prince of Asgard.”

“I am neither,” he says bitterly.

“I raised you.  I tended your wounds, held you when you had nightmares, watched you grow from an infant to a man.”  She catches his face in her hands.  “I am your mother.  I have earned that name and you will not deny me.”  She pulls him close to press her forehead against his.

He closes his eyes.  “You are dead because of me.”

“Loki, Loki.”  Her hands brush over his hair.  “You did not know what would happen that day.”

“I am so sorry, Mother.”  Tears sting his eyes.

Frigga catches his chin.  “Be the man that I know you can be.”

He clings to her, afraid and lost.

“I will be with you.  Always.  Remember that.”  Her hands fall to his, clutching at his fingers. 

“I will never forget,” he swears.

It hurts beyond imagining for him to turn away from her and face the dark woods around them.  He can sense what lies within them; pain and hate and darkness beyond measure. 

Frigga pulls a dagger from her skirts and presses it into his hand.  “I would not send my youngest son into battle without a weapon.”

He tries to smile as he curls his fingers around the hilt.  A single dagger against the raging fury of his own mind is little enough.  On impulse, he turns to the statue, approaching it cautiously.  He runs his fingers over red and white stripes, traces the star in the center.  It comes easily from the statue’s grip and, as he puts his arm through the leather straps on the inside, it feels both strange and familiar at the same time.  He almost catches the name of the man before it slips away once again into the darkness of his mind.

He turns to face the woods ahead of him.  There will be monsters, unimaginable and unfathomable monsters.  His grip on the dagger tightens.

“I will always be with you,” Frigga whispers behind him.

He finds courage in her words and plunges into the dark woods.

**

Alarms sound in the lab.  Bruce scrambles out of his chair, reaching for his glasses and dropping the half eaten bagel on his desk.

“JARVIS, what’s going on?” he asks on the way down the hallway.

“Loki is awake, sir.”

Bruce breaks into a run.  He hits the door to the inner lab and barrels through it.  Inside the tank, Loki is thrashing wildly against the braces on his wings.  “Start the extraction, JARVIS.”

Immediately, liquid begins to drain out the bottom of the tank, a gap of air at the top growing inches every second.  Tubes and wires retract, pulling loose from Loki’s skin.  When the water is low enough that he can stand, the braces that had fit against the joints where his wings met his back fold back into the walls of the tank.  The last piece to go is the face mask.  Loki falls forward, crumpling to his knees in the remaining inches of water.  He is gasping and shivering violently.  His wings shed water as he shakes, like a bird tossing away falling rain.

Bruce finds a large blanket and a pair of scrub pants.  When the water has drained completely, he punches in the combination that unlocks the sealed door in the side of the tank.

“Easy, easy,” he says quietly, moving cautiously into the tank.  “Loki?  It’s Bruce Banner.  Remember me?”

Loki pulls away from him, eyes wide and teeth showing.  He doesn’t speak, only growls as he retreats as far away as he can, pulling himself tightly into the protective cover of his wings.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”  He sees no recognition or comprehension in Loki’s face and his heart sinks.  “I’m going to leave these here.  It’ll help you get dry and stay warm.”  He sets the blanket and pants down on the driest spot that he can find and backs out of the tank.

“I have notified Mister Stark of the change in Loki’s condition,” JARVIS informs him.

“Thanks.”

Bruce moves to the computer terminal and begins looking through the past hours of data.  For Loki to come awake after two months of being comatose was nothing short of a miracle, but something wasn’t right.  He frowns as he looks over the data.  There had been bursts of brain activity, sharp fluctuations, for the past few hours, as though his brain had been struggling to come back online.

“Bruce!” Tony’s voice comes over the intercom.  “I’m on my way.  Everything under control?”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”  Bruce glances back at the tank.  Loki hasn’t moved, still curled up inside his wings looking like a cornered and terrified animal.  “Don’t tell Thor or Steve yet.  Not until you see this.”

There’s silence for a beat.  “Did something go wrong during the extraction?”

“No, the tank worked perfectly.  You’ll see when you get here.” 

He brings up the last panel of vitals, scanning over the numbers.  There’s nothing abnormal; not that he knows what normal is for Loki.  There’s nothing that would indicate anything physically wrong.  His bones were healed and he’d gained weight.  It would take time for him to adjust to food again; his digestive system might need a kick start.  Since that’s something he can do, Bruce digs out one of the powdered nutrient packs and pours it into a tall water bottle.  He watches Loki as he fills it with water and shakes it for a couple minutes to dissolve the powder.

Cautiously, he approaches the tank again and steps inside.  “This will help you.  Drink it.”

Loki turns his head sharply to the side, like a bird, watching Bruce intently.  He leaves the water bottle next to the blanket and retreats again.

After about twenty minutes, Loki uncurls enough to reach for the water bottle.  He grabs hold of it and withdraws.  Bruce watches, fascinated, as Loki turns the water bottle over in his hands until he figures out how to open the spigot and get liquid to come out.

By the time Tony breezes through the door, Bruce is sitting cross-legged on the floor with a lab book in his lap, jotting down notes.

“Bruce,” Tony says, slowing to a halt.  “Why is he still in the tank?  And still naked.”

“This is incredible, Tony.”  Bruce waves his pen toward the tank.  “He has no idea who I am.  He’s completely feral.”

“Whoa, whoa, what?”  Tony turns to him.  “He’s what?”

“Go ahead, try getting near him.”

“Get near the guy who can disembowel someone with his feathers?  Thank you, I’ll pass.”  He turns back toward the tank with a frown.  “Amnesia?”

“This is more than just amnesia.  This is almost total developmental regression.  It’s fascinating.”

“Great.”  Tony sighs.  “Do you want to tell Thor or should I?”

“Just send him down.  But only Thor for now.  I don’t want to overwhelm him.  He’s still too frightened to leave the tank.  One person at a time.”  Bruce turns back to his book, writing down that Loki had noticed Tony’s presence and hadn’t show any signs of recognition of Tony either.

“Are we going to have to diaper him?” Tony asks flatly.

“He’ll learn.  He figured out how to use the water bottle in just a few minutes.  I’m sure we can toilet train him.  Just try not to make any sudden moves.”

“Toilet train a Norse God.   Now I’ve heard everything.”  Tony shudders as he turns to leave.  “I liked him better when he was trying to kill us.”

Bruce explains it to Thor as gently as he can.  Loki responds to Thor exactly as he’d responded to Bruce, withdrawing and growling, lacking any recognition of his brother.

“I do not understand,” Thor says as he steps out of the tank. 

Bruce tries to explain, but he’s out of his depth almost as much as Thor.  “Everything I have says he’s healthy, his injuries have healed.  But there could have been trauma to his brain that will take longer to heal than broken bones.  It’s a miracle that he’s awake at all after showing no brain activity for this long.”

“He does not know who I am.”  Thor sounds heartbroken.

“Be patient.  His memories may return.”

“And if they do not?”  Thor turns toward Bruce.  “If he is no longer my brother?”

“He’s still your brother, Thor.”  Bruce tries to smile.  “You’ll make new memories.”

Thor considers this and then nods.

It takes the three of them, Bruce, Thor, and Steve, several days to coax Loki from the tank; another week to convince him to wear any clothing at all.  Thor and Steve take turns helping him relearn basic skills.  Day after day, Steve patiently sits with Loki and teaches him how to use eating utensils.  Thor teaches him how to get dressed and how to use a toothbrush.  When Steve realizes that Loki has forgotten how to read or write, he comes home with boxes of books.  He sits on the floor in the living room and painstakingly helps Loki trace out letters and then words.  There’s no way to be sure that Loki understands the books that Steve gives him, he remains completely silent, but he gradually begins to make deliberate choices in the books he selects for Steve to read.

Bruce never hears Thor or Steve complain.

It’s a reading night when Director Fury stops by for the first time.  He stands in the hallway, watching Steve read to Loki.  Sometimes, Loki reaches out and touches the page, indicating that there is something he doesn’t understand.  Steve repeats the particular sentence or paragraph until Loki is satisfied.

“Never would’ve believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself,” Fury tells Bruce.  “Do you think they did this to him?”

“You mean on purpose?”  Bruce has thought about that possibility a great deal.  “We didn’t find anything at the site that would point toward that kind of treatment.  The only surgical area was specifically for implanting the false eyes.  They shaved his hair off, but I didn’t find any significant skull or brain injuries in any of the scans.  The bones in his wings were broken repeatedly.  Every time they healed enough for him to use, they must’ve broken them again.  I think that’s why he hasn’t tried to use them since he woke up.  What he does with them is instinctual, there’s no purpose to it.  The regression could be a response to the trauma, combined with the poor nutrition.  It could be psychological.  And what do we really know about Frost Giants?  For all we know, this is a completely normal behavior after that kind of physical trauma.”

Fury sighs.  “There’s something you need to see.  Don’t let Rogers see it.  Not yet.  Not until you’re sure he can handle it.”  He holds out a slender black memory stick.  “It’s the reason SHIELD hasn’t come knocking.”

Bruce tucks it into his pocket and saves it for later.  He makes tea and listens to Steve read until it’s time for them to take Loki to his room and settled into bed.

“Thor,” Bruce says quietly.  “Do you have a minute?”

Thor glances immediately toward Loki but Steve waves him on.  “I’ve got him, we’re good.” 

“I’m headed down to the lab.”  Bruce waits until he’s sure Steve and Loki are out of earshot before he pulls the memory stick out of his pocket.  “Fury gave this to me.  It has something to do with Loki and…and he doesn’t want Steve to see it.”

Reaching for the memory stick, Thor frowns as he turns it over on his palm.  “That is ominous.  Perhaps he believes it would be too difficult for Captain Rogers to observe.”

“You know Loki better than any of us.  I’m sure whatever’s on there,” Bruce hesitates.  “I’m sure it’ll be difficult for you to watch, but you might see something that we, and the rest of SHIELD, wouldn’t know is important.”

Thor takes a deep breath.  “It could be images of their treatment of my brother; that is what you’re saying.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what it is.  The interrogation rooms we found were wired for video.”

Bruce leads the way.  Tony has set up an entire signal analysis suite in one of the rooms; he mostly uses it to run simulations and deconstruct data from his prototype suits.  Bruce takes the memory stick and fits it into one of the display inputs.  When a folder icon appears, he opens it up and scans over the file names.  They’re listed by date; the first is almost nine months old.  He starts with that one.

On the screen, the image blurs and shifts, running bars of static ripple through it for several seconds before it comes into focus.  Loki is standing behind a table, his hands bound in front of him.  Armed guards surround him on three sides.  A man with slicked back hair and a gray suit begins to ask Loki questions.  Frequently, he gestures to a television screen behind him but the video camera’s angle doesn’t catch whatever is showing on the screen.   The man asks about the Avengers and about SHIELD; he wants to know where Loki’s loyalty lies. 

_Loki says nothing._

_“You are the only weakness he has,” the man says.  Suddenly, he has Loki’s full attention.  “You must’ve broken his heart pretty good.”_

_Loki’s focus is on the monitor on the wall; his grip on the chain between his hands is visibly tighter._

_“Is that what happened?  Shadowfax, isn’t it?  That’s what they call you.”  The man leans against the corner of the table.  “SHIELD doesn’t know what to make of you, Shadowfax.  They don’t know what you are, don’t know where you came from.  But most of all, they’re really not sure what to do with the guy who cost them Captain America.”_

_Loki turns his face away._

_“I wouldn’t expect them to throw open the doors for you or come looking for you.”  The man waits for a few moments.  “In fact, SHIELD would rather you disappeared permanently.  But maybe we can help you.”_

_Loki finally looks at the man, eyes narrowing.  “I’m listening.”_

_“A man with your unique skills?  The possibilities are limitless.  I’m sure we could find a place for you with Centipede.”_

_“And what would you wish for in return?” Loki asks disdainfully._

_“Reconnect with Captain Rogers.  Rekindle the old flame if you’d like.  Destabilize him, you’ve proven to be very good at that.  We want SHIELD to believe they can no longer trust him.  They might even think about putting him on ice for awhile.  Either way, once SHIELD writes him off, we’d like you to explain to him what Centipede has to offer.”_

_Loki appears to consider that. “And your inferior soldiers?  Access to Captain America could aid you in improving them.”_

_The man seems taken aback for the first time.  “We’ve resolved the issue with Extremis.”_

_“But that isn’t their only flaw, is it?”  Loki smiles and it’s anything but friendly.  “Perhaps the binding chemistry is unstable; your understanding of the Chitauri technology is primitive at best.  Or perhaps the sample you obtained of the super soldier serum was contaminated.  Yes.  That’s it, isn’t it?  But if you had a pure sample, or even better, an unlimited source.”_

_“If you join us, you’ll be free to go.  If you refuse…”_

_“You’ll kill me?” Loki mocks._

_“We can make your life extremely unpleasant.”_

_The motion is sudden.  Black wings unfold and swing back, knocking the guards off their feet, and then curve forward.  Primary feathers slice through the table between Loki and the man as though it was made of paper, tearing it to shreds.  When the wings fall back again, Loki has the man pinned against the wall with both hands around his throat._

_“If you so much as look at Captain Rogers, if you harm even one hair on his head, I will show you how unpleasant I can be,” Loki snarls._

_One of the armed guards holds up a strange, bulky gun and fires.  A thin wire, crackling with electricity, shoots out and strikes Loki’s back.  He convulses and then crumples to the floor.  The man gasps for breath, rubbing at his neck._

Thor reaches down and stops the video.  “We should not keep this from Captain Rogers.  Although, perhaps, the right time to show him is still ahead of us.”

Bruce glances at the number of videos remaining.  “The rest of these…they probably don’t get any better.  If you want to go.”

With a heavy sigh, Thor reaches for a chair and takes a seat beside Bruce.  “It will serve as fuel for my wrath when we are finally able to take the fight to Centipede’s doorstep.”

They watch well into the night.  Although the content is disturbing, it’s quickly apparent that Loki has no intention of speaking to the man at all.  Even when they drag him into the interrogation room because he can’t walk, even when the man breaks every one of his fingers, Loki refuses to say anything.  The last video doesn’t come from an interrogation room.  It’s the surgical room and Loki is strapped down to a table; a doctor is preparing to implant a false eye.  Bruce sees Loki make a quick gesture with his hand.  Three of the guards fall dead and the false eye in the surgeon’s hand explodes in a burst of sparks.

Bruce checks the date of the last video.  It had occurred only two months after the first, but a number of his broken bones had been far more recent.  His stomach churns a little.  Once Loki had proven to be uncooperative, they had simply stopped filming the brutality.

“Loki, you fool.”  Thor shakes his head.  “He could have lied and tricked the man.  Once he was free, he could have come to me.  He did not need to endure such torment.”

Bruce keeps his thoughts to himself for the moment.  “I think we’ll hold off on showing any of this to Steve for now.”

“Agreed.”  Thor stands up.  “Thank you for showing me this, Bruce.  Although my heart is heavier for having seen it.”

As soon as Thor is gone, a window pops up on the screen and Tony’s face appears.  “Where was my invite to movie night, oh-Bruce-my-pal?”

With a groan, Bruce closes the folder and pulls out the memory stick.  “Really, Tony?”

“I’m just saying,” Tony huffs.  Then his expression turns serious.  “Are we really not telling Steve?”

There’s an echo to his voice that makes Bruce pause.  He hits the power on the display and swivels around in his chair.  Tony steps out of one of the darkened doorways leading to another lab.  “How long have you been in there?”

“JARVIS notifies me when a SHIELD memory stick gets plugged in anywhere in this building.”  Tony tucks his phone into his pocket.   “Gotta say, I really want to know how Loki activated those kill switches just by waving his fingers.  That is amazing.  I bet Fury wet himself when he saw that.  Because you know what that means, right?”

“Loki’s magic is a type of electromagnetism?” Bruce suggests.

“Why not just wave his fingers and shut off the Iron Man suit that day in New York?  Or, for that matter, why not the helicarrier?  Why the elaborate plot?”

Bruce shakes his head as he gets up.  “I already hate this conversation.”

“You have to admit it’s very interesting.”

“We are not experimenting on Loki,” Bruce says as he starts for the elevator.

“Not on, _with_.  With.  Huge difference.”

“Good night, Tony.”  He grins when he sees Tony realize that the elevator doors are going to close before he can reach them.

From then on, he has JARVIS monitor Loki constantly.  Mostly to continue observing his progress but also to make sure Tony doesn’t try to see what happens if he pokes him with sharp objects.  He discovers almost immediately that Loki has nightmares; it’s the reason Thor often finds him curled tightly into a corner in the morning.  Bruce has JARVIS play movies and, although Loki doesn’t really pay attention, the background noise seems to soothe him.

It’s an old clip from one of Captain America’s war films that elicits the first unexpected response.

Bruce tests his observation by setting up a carefully selected group of videos and watching to see what Loki reacts to; his first guess is that it’s Steve himself, although Loki has shown no more cognizance of Steve than anyone else. 

It isn’t what he expected.

As a final test, he leads Loki down to the training floor where Steve and Thor are practicing.  It takes several minutes for him to convince Loki to follow him into the room; it’s a new place and he’s very uncomfortable with new places.

Steve sees them first and starts forward.  “Is everything alright?”

“Just testing a theory.  Do me a favor and go get your shield.”

“My shield?”

“Trust me, okay?”  He leads Loki into the center of the room, keeping his distance. 

Loki doesn’t seem to have conscious control of his wings and they turn into vicious blades when he’s frightened. Thor speaks to Loki gently, as though soothing a troubled stallion.  Bruce isn’t sure if Thor has noticed or not, but he is often more successful than any of the others in getting Loki to calm down.

When Steve returns, carrying his shield at his side, he looks worried.  “What do I need the shield for?”

“Just hold it out in front of you.  Like that.”  Bruce watches Loki.

Loki’s attention focuses on the shield immediately.  His feathers ruffle and turn soft again; his posture straightening.  After several minutes, he starts toward Steve, one step at a time.  As he gets close, he reaches out one hand and lets his fingertips just touch the surface of the shield.

“What does this mean?” Thor asks.

“I don’t know.  But he responds to the shield.  It means something to him.”  He can see that Thor doesn’t fully appreciate the magnitude of the discovery.  “I think he remembers it.”

Steve stands perfectly still, watching Loki trace his fingers over the shield’s design.  After several minutes, Loki looks directly at Steve and seems to focus on him for the first time. His voice is so quiet that the word is barely a whisper.  “Steve.”

Steve nods quickly, a wide smile appearing on his face. "That's right. Steve."

Loki turns to look over his shoulder at Thor. Bruce feels Thor tense, afraid that Loki won't remember his name.

"Brother," Loki whispers.


End file.
